It was surprising to see so few stores catering for the rugged handset market, with just two of the stores offering a handset that was out of the ordinary.

Dave at Vodafone was a clear winner after offering several options to cater for my request. He was also the only person to actually show me some of the rugged cases on offer rather than just talk about them.

Aziz at EE also put in a good performance, while Georgie at Carphone was unlucky not to be able to offer the JCB handset in store.